This Little Piggy (2 page)

Joe sighed. “If I made that tongue-clicking noise at you, you’d smack me in the face.”

“I know. Life’s unfair, isn’t it?” Clare slid onto the car seat, wincing again at the feel of the hot faux-leather. “So.” She looked at Joe. “It’s off to Sweetmeadows, to whip up some panic, yes?”

The Sweetmeadows estate was one of those places where Clare felt glad to have Joe alongside her. It was a joyless collection of Sixties-built, flat-roofed, box-shaped flats, up to four storeys high. The local council had paper plans for knocking down the whole estate and rebuilding, but they’d been gathering dust in someone’s office drawer for the last five years. There was no money. And while all the half-decent council houses in the borough were being bought up fast and cheap by the tenants, no one wanted the damp, mould-ridden properties at Sweetmeadows. Dozens of the flats were empty and boarded up. Most of the tenants that were left were among the most desperate on the council’s list.

“If I had a proper car, I’d never leave it here,” said Joe, pulling up and peering out of the window to read the street names on the concrete walkways. “But this thing’s not even worth nicking. I live in hope.”

Clare jumped out of the car. “Why is it that the more rural-sounding the name, the nastier the estate actually is?”

“Bucolic,” said Joe. “Sweetmeadows sounds bucolic. But it ain’t.”

“Good word,” said Clare. “You could’ve been a writer.” She squinted in the late afternoon sun. “Look. That’s Jasmine Walk, over there.”

The area underneath and around Jasmine Walk was taped off and a team of police officers was scouring the ground, watched by a small crowd of people. It wasn’t difficult to get the residents’ reactions, although some weren’t waiting for the formal police procedures. Amongst themselves, they had already charged and convicted Debs Donnelly of throwing her baby over the balcony, then panicking and trying to hide the body in the bin sheds.

What was Debs like? Did she have problems? Was Jamie a difficult baby? No one really knew. It wasn’t the kind of estate where people knocked on each other’s doors and popped in for morning coffee.

What about the balconies? That was an easy call. Word a question in the right way and you always get the answer you want. Of course everyone told Clare they wanted the balconies made more secure. In her head, she wrote her ‘Safety plea on baby death balconies’ copy in a few short minutes. It might pad the story out, especially if Debs Donnelly was charged, ruining the chance of a front page lead.

“Hey, missus, are you a reporter?” A child’s voice called over and Clare turned. There was a little group of four or five kids, hanging around next to Joe’s car.

“Here we go,” said Joe, under his breath. “Wait for it:
Are we gonna be in the paper
?”

“Are we gonna be in the paper?” one of the kids asked straight away. Clare answered all their questions and told them to buy the
Post
the next day.

“We need to get all this news sent over now,” she told them. “Don’t suppose there’s a working phone box anywhere near here?”

The kids all shook their heads.

“You can use our phone if you like, missus,” said a stringy little girl of around nine or ten, dressed in a tiny vest and shorts. Joe and Clare looked at each other. It would certainly save a car trip back to the office. They followed the girl up the concrete steps, Clare wrinkling her nose at the smells of mould and urine.

On the fourth floor, the little girl pushed open the door. There was a loud bark and a huge dog – a sort of cross-breed, but with definite German Shepherd in there somewhere – lolloped over towards them.

Clare breathed deeply and braced herself to pat the thing. She wasn’t much of a dog person, but pretending to like people’s pets was part of a journalist’s skill. The inside of the place didn’t smell too good either, but none of these flats ever did. “Where’s your mum then? Or dad?”

“Me mam’s out,” said the kid, holding the huge dog back by hanging onto the fur at the back of its neck. “But you can use the phone anyway, she’ll not mind. It’s just there.” The phone sat on the bare floor just next to the door, its wires trailing back into the living room.

“If you’re sure.” Joe dialled first and told the late duty photographer to come out and get some pictures of the estate.

Clare called her own newsdesk and got the late reporter to type in her copy. She put a pound on the little table next to the phone. “Tell your mam thank you.”

The girl watched all this carefully. “Will you put me in the paper then?” she asked.

“Er, what for?” Joe fondled the huge dog behind the ears. Clare winced and tried to smile at it.

“Letting you use me phone. Me name’s Amy.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Clare said. The girl pouted. She was a strange-looking little thing, with shiny eyes the colour of tea and hair that was thick and fuzzy on top, but trailed into rats-tails down the back of her head.

“Tell you what, though,” Clare went on. “We’ll be back tomorrow, doing some more stuff about this poor little baby. Does your mum know the Donnelly family? I see you live just about above their flat.”

“Yeah, me mam knows Debs. So do I. And I knew the baby.” Amy cocked her head in the direction of the floor below.

“Righto,” Clare said. “Tell your mum we’ll give her a knock tomorrow because we’ll want to talk to people who knew the baby’s family.”

“You can talk to me. I knew Jamie,” said Amy. “He was dead cute. Like a Cabbage Patch doll. I love babies, me. I used to play with Jamie, and Becca and Bobbie.”

“How old are you, Amy?” Clare asked.

“Nine. Nearly ten.”

“Well, we can’t do a proper interview with you, not without your mum being around. We’re not allowed. So you ask if we can come and see her tomorrow. Then we can talk to you and put you in the paper. Maybe with a picture.”

“Yeah?” Amy’s pale face split into a grin. “You promise?”

“I promise.” Clare propped her business card onto the dial of Amy’s phone.

Outside, the chimes of an ice cream van plinked out a warped version of
Greensleeves.
“Here,” Joe said, pulling cash out of his pocket. “Get an ice cream.”

“Ta.” Amy’s eyes gleamed as she shoved the pound coin into the pocket of her shorts.

Clare and Joe clattered down the steps. “Jesus. That place stank,” Joe said. “The kid wasn’t much better.”

Clare stopped on the next level down. “We could just give the Donnellys a knock? I guess they’ll tell us to bugger off, but at least we’ve tried.”

A female uniformed police officer stood guard on the balcony. “Reporters?” she asked them. Then she moved her feet wider apart to block their way a little more. “I’m not letting you past. Sorry. The family doesn’t want to talk.”

Clare tried not to show her irritation. “Can we just ask them ourselves? We’re only the local papers, not the red-tops. Sometimes people like to...”

The officer’s expression didn’t change. “No chance,” she said. “And I’m here all night, or at least one of us will be. So don’t bother coming back. I’ve been told to tell you there’s a press conference in the morning. You’ll get everything you need then.”

Clare and Joe turned to leave. And just as Clare was shoving her notebook into her bag, a voice called out. “She didn’t do it! Print that, will you? She didn’t hurt him!”

Clare turned to see a man with a toddler in his arms, standing behind the policewoman. His face was red and blotched with crying.

“Mr Donnelly?” Clare asked, getting out the notebook again.

The young PC interrupted. “Mr Donnelly, I’d advise you to go back inside. The reporters are leaving now.”

Clare deliberately moved her head to the side to look past the officer. “It’s okay, Mr Donnelly, you’re entitled to talk to us if you want. I’m Clare Jackson from the
Post
. You’re saying your wife has been wrongly accused?”

Rob Donnelly clutched his little boy tighter. “That’s right. The police are saying she threw our laddie out of the pram. She wouldn’t do that. She just wouldn’t.”

“What do you think happened, Mr Donnelly?” Joe asked, and when the policewoman tried to speak again he held up his hand. “You have the right to ask us into your flat, Mr Donnelly, if you want.”

“Aye, come in, then.”

The officer’s face reddened slightly as she stood aside, and Clare heard her get straight onto her radio to contact someone higher up. They’d have to be quick.

They stepped into a suffocatingly warm living room where the TV was blaring and toys were strewn all over the floor. The toddler in Rob Donnelly’s arms began to squirm and he placed him gently on one of the few clear patches of carpet. He picked up a wind-up musical toy in the shape of a TV set and shook it until it spat out a few bare notes.
This little piggy went to market
...

Rob didn’t ask them to sit down. Clare glanced at the TV. In spite of the mess, this place was cleaner than Amy’s flat, though there was a distinct smell of nappies.

“I’m waiting to see if there’s anything on the local news.” The voice from the sofa was that of an older woman, who they hadn’t noticed before. This must be Grandma: Debs’ mum, perhaps, or Rob’s. Hard to tell.

“Did you see anyone come round with a camera?” Joe asked.

The woman shrugged. “No one came in here.”

“I don’t think they’d say much anyway,” Clare said carefully, “if they think Mrs Donnelly’s going to be charged.”

“She won’t be charged,” said the woman. “My Deborah’s innocent, I know that.”

Rob screwed up his eyes and balled his fists. It was like he was trying not to explode, Clare thought. “You say Debbie couldn’t have done it?”

“She wouldn’t,” Rob said, taking in a gulp of a breath and wiping his eyes. “Debs was mad about Jamie. She would never have hurt him. I’m sick of telling people that.”

“What do you think happened?” Clare asked again, trying to smile at the toddler as she drove a toy car over her toes.

“I don’t...” Rob ran out of words. He shook his head and held up his hands.

“It’s obvious why someone’s done it,” said the woman, who Clare established was Rob’s mother-in-law, Annie Martin. “The bastards. This is how low they’ll go.”

“Why’s it obvious?” Joe asked.

Rob swore and stamped out into the kitchen. Annie reached for her handbag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She held it out to Joe and Clare. Clare shook her head but Joe reached across and took one. He didn’t smoke anymore but it was one of his tactics, taking a fag from someone he was interviewing. It created a little bond with the other person, he said. Stops you looking superior. He even kept a lighter, just for work, and he used it now.

Annie took a long drag. And a longer outward breath. She nudged her head slightly in the direction of the kitchen. “He went back.”

“Oh.” Clare and Joe glanced at each other. There was no need to ask what Annie meant. For all the men round here who were working, and there weren’t so many of them, there were only two choices, both of them impossible. You either stayed out. Or you went back. They were four months into a national miners’ strike, hitting all the pits across the country. And Rob was a scab.

“You’ve had other trouble, then?” Joe asked.

Annie nodded, pressing her lips together and blinking. “Trouble. Aye. You could say that. But you never think they’d target the bairns...” She gave a low sob and Clare squeezed beside her on the sofa, and put a hand on her arm.

“He only went back last week. I never agreed with it. I knew it wasn’t right. But Deborah said he did it to pay the bills, you know? That’s all. Not for greed and extra money and all of that. Just to feed the little ’uns. And they were trying to get out of this hell-hole, into a bigger house. With a garden.”

She shook her head and rummaged around for a tissue. Clare always had a pack in her bag, and she handed it to Annie. “So what happened? Since Rob went back?”

“Nothing we couldn’t put up with. A window out, the first night. Calling in the street. Spitting. Stuff through the letterbox. But this...”

Joe was doing the scribbling. He’d give Clare the quotes later. “You’re saying someone’s killed Jamie because Rob broke the strike?” He couldn’t keep a questioning note out of his voice. Clare glared at him.

“That’s right, that’s what I’m saying. Otherwise, who else would do it? Who would pick a little bairn out of a pram and…?” Annie started to sob again, mingled with a deep, choking smoker’s cough.

“You’re talking rubbish, woman.” Rob was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “They’re me mates. This strike’s nearly over, it has to be, and then it’ll all get forgotten. None of them would hurt my little lad.”

“Some mates.” Annie’s tarry voice was full of scorn.

Rob punched the wall, so hard it made flakes of plaster and paint flutter to the floor. The little boy jumped and looked at him, blinking. The music box had stopped.

Clare glanced at Joe. “So what do you think happened, Mr Donnelly?”

Rob didn’t answer. He knelt down on the floor and picked up a toy telephone. He held it out to the toddler, who was busy smearing a stream of clear snot across his face. He held out his sticky hands for the toy.

“Jamie’s,” he said. Rob put his face in his hands and Clare watched as his shoulders shook, without making a sound. She waited in the mounting silence for him to howl out loud.

Joe asked Annie a few bland questions about the family, wrote all the details down. “I hate to ask this, but have you got a photo of Jamie we could borrow? We could copy it and I promise we’d get it back to you tomorrow.”

“There’s one in my purse.” Annie delved in her bag again, pulling out keys and fag packets and matches.

There was a loud rap at the door. Clare looked at Joe. “That’ll be the cops coming to throw us out.”

Two uniformed officers walked in. “All right you two, out you go. There’s a press conference tomorrow at nine. Leave this family in peace now, please.”

“Come on, lads. Mr Donnelly okayed it,” Joe said. “He asked us in.”

Uniform took a step towards him. “They’re in shock. They let you in, they’ll have to let the rest of the pack in too. Don’t make me phone your editor.”